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Unfortunately this is something I see with many articles or open source projects. The building instructions are only for Linux (usually apt-get some packages an

Unfortunately this is something I see with many articles or open source projects. The building instructions are only for Linux (usually apt-get some packages and run configure/make). For Windows? Good luck, at most you'll get some nasty MSYS setup to follow.

qayxc 7y ago
WSL should solve that handily. I use it daily and test and compile my programs on both Windows and Linux. On the other hand I also stay away from projects that don't use cross-platform build-systems like Ninja, or CMake. Shell scripts are sometimes incompatible even between different distributions and shells. The worst offender (that I know of) by far is GNU Octave. On Windows they basically ship a snapshot of a Linux dev box (complete with the whole directory tree, compiler suite and everything) with userland binaries compiled for Windows. So much for being "cross-platform"...
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  WSL solving the issue on Windows is like telling a Linux user to "just use Wine".
cxr 7y ago
And you really shouldn't expect otherwise. One of these is gratis and libre, and the other isn't. If you want to stand on that side with Windows and expect other people to help you out, then what you're asking for is for them to shell out money and a lot of effort for you. Whereas the reverse is not true; in comparison, the picture of a Windows user having to get access to a FOSS toolchain for themselves looks trivial—and with the abundance of ready-made system images that you can spin up without even having to reboot your computer, it is. "Windows user" is not an ADA-protected class.
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  I don't expect Windows support for all projects, but I consider having to install the whole Unix toolchain on Windows equivalent to telling a Linux user that Linux is supported, just run it through Wine and it works.
  - cxr 7y ago
    In that case, then boy, your criticism is really out of place. The entire article here is about running a classic Mac OS image so you can run a discontinued compiler.

qayxc 7y ago

WSL should solve that handily. I use it daily and test and compile my programs on both Windows and Linux. On the other hand I also stay away from projects that don't use cross-platform build-systems like Ninja, or CMake. Shell scripts are sometimes incompatible even between different distributions and shells. The worst offender (that I know of) by far is GNU Octave. On Windows they basically ship a snapshot of a Linux dev box (complete with the whole directory tree, compiler suite and everything) with userland binaries compiled for Windows. So much for being "cross-platform"...

skocznymroczny 7y ago
WSL solving the issue on Windows is like telling a Linux user to "just use Wine".

cxr 7y ago

And you really shouldn't expect otherwise. One of these is gratis and libre, and the other isn't. If you want to stand on that side with Windows and expect other people to help you out, then what you're asking for is for them to shell out money and a lot of effort for you. Whereas the reverse is not true; in comparison, the picture of a Windows user having to get access to a FOSS toolchain for themselves looks trivial—and with the abundance of ready-made system images that you can spin up without even having to reboot your computer, it is. "Windows user" is not an ADA-protected class.

skocznymroczny 7y ago
I don't expect Windows support for all projects, but I consider having to install the whole Unix toolchain on Windows equivalent to telling a Linux user that Linux is supported, just run it through Wine and it works.
- cxr 7y ago
  In that case, then boy, your criticism is really out of place. The entire article here is about running a classic Mac OS image so you can run a discontinued compiler.